WASHINGTON — The staff director of the Senate Intelligence Committee issued a statement late Wednesday denying that the National Security Agency gathers information on where Americans are when they use their cellphones. The statement came hours after the committee’s chair, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, appeared to confirm that it did.

“The NSA does not collect locational information on Americans or non-Americans inside the United States without a court order. No other agency in the Intelligence Community does so either,” David Grannis said in an e-mail to McClatchy News Service.

Grannis’ statement seemed to go beyond what NSA director Gen. Keith Alexander has been willing to say at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in response to questions about the NSA’s collection of such information.

On Wednesday, Alexander said the agency began a test project in 2010 to collect data about ordinary Americans’ cellphone locations but discontinued it in 2011 because it had no “operational value,” the agency’s director said Wednesday.

The disclosure came just a week after Alexander declined to answer whether the NSA had ever sought the authority to obtain such data.

Alexander denied a New York Times report published Saturday that said NSA searched social networks of Americans searching for foreign terror connections, and detailed 12 previously revealed cases of abuse by NSA employees who used the network for unsanctioned missions such as spying on a spouse. He said all employees were caught and most were disciplined.

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